Privacy in schools and the protection of student information is an often overlooked aspect of student safety. Part of what makes this issue so complex is that privacy is not well defined. This has created many loopholes in policies pertaining to student privacy that place student information at risk. Along with this, the internet is constantly being updated and changed. This requires policy regarding student privacy to be continually reviewed and extremely clear, which it often is not (Haston, 2019). Due to this, personal student information such as test scores, GPA, ethnicity and religion can be exposed without student or parent informed consent (Illinois Families for Public Schools, 2018a). This not only occurs within public schools, but also when students interact with private vendors. Companies such as Pearsons, a British maker of educational software, and the college board have not only been found to sell student data, but have also experienced major security breaches (Illinois Families for Public Schools, 2019d). For example, in 2019, Illinois students were subject to a security breach by Pearsons which put the information of 80,000 students in over 30 districts at risk (Olson, 2019)(Illinois Families for Public Schools, 2019d). Issues such as these reveal the urgent need to revisit laws surrounding student privacy.

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In this website, I will review how one organization, Illinois Families for Public Schools (IFFPS) has worked to reform legislation regarding student privacy in Illinois. I am choosing to focus on Illinois because it has been subject to major security breaches, such as the most recent breach by Pearsons, and laws around student privacy were successfully reformed in this state. Here, I will review the methods of IFFPS, and examine how IFFPS functions as an organization through the lens of both hierarchical and democratic community organizing. Finally, I will review IFFPS’s new campaign around keeping student information safe during COVID-19 (Illinois Coronavirus Updates, 2020).